BLOG ENTRY 1 (WEEK 1-3)

Yoo guys welcome back to my blog! 

There has been a lot of content being taught throughout these 3 weeks so why not share what I've learnt with you guys. 

Week 1 :

Since this module is Introduction to Chemical Product Design, what exactly is a chemical product??

  •  In chemistry, a chemical product is formed during a chemical reaction

  •  However, for this module, it is a product formed by using chemical engineering principals

  •  Therefore by creating such products with these concepts in mind, this process is Chemical Product Design

With all these in mind, there are many products that can be formed with these concepts and in fact most of them are being used in the current day and age. With that many products, they can all be classified under a few sub-categories.

- COMMODITIES :

  • Made in large quantities through reaction engineering and unit operations

- MOLECULAR PRODUCTS :

   • Mostly discovered through research and possesses specific chemical structure. Commonly used in the pharmaceutical industry as they perform tasks such as curing diseases

- MICRO-STRUCTURED PRODUCTS : 

  • Products that serve a singular but niche purpose. Engineered at a microscopic level usually less than 100 micrometers

- CHEMICAL DEVICES :

  • Products that are made to help us in our daily lives

Week2 :

On week 2, we were tasked to discuss within our groups a chemical product that we would like to create. But before we got to that, Mr Chua taught us the concept of Pain Points. 

What exactly are pain points??

 - Pain points : problems experienced by the user while using a product or service. These points are bad for the seller as it would affect the sales of the product, affecting the company's sales. An example would be the quality of the product being less than satisfactory, or the product causing harm to the user whilst being used. Being a gamer myself, I would get really pissed when the game got really buggy. This obviously affected my mood as I couldnt even play the game. Ultimately, I decided to uninstall the game as it was not worth my time playing a game that couldnt even be played. 

With this in mind, my group decided to tackle the problem of global warming. Since global warming is a very broad term, we were told to be more specific and to pinpoint which aspect of global warming we would want to tackle. After a long discussion, our team came up with the idea to create a more environmentally friendly refrigerator. The idea seems quite absurd at first but when we looked into the inner workings of a refrigerator, we realized that we just had to change certain parts of the refrigerator to make it work. We also taught of other ideas such as a catalytic converter but it was obviously too ridiculous to even attempt to create something like that so we decided to stick to the refrigerator. 

Learning reflection :

         • Throughout these few weeks, we were also introduced to the Tuckerman's Team Formation model

I agree with this model to a certain extent. From my experience, this model is more applicable to groups that have been pre-assigned rather than letting the student pick their own groupmates. During LPS 1, my group was already pre-assigned so we all felt out of place as we were all new to the school and this was our first time seeing one another. Comparing LPS 1 to POS 1, the team communication is much better and this allowed us to use our individual strengths to complete the work assigned to us. 

         • We were tasked as part of our CA1 to complete 5 literature reviews. I didnt see the importance of it initially as I felt that it was a bit too much work to do. However, after doing 1-2 literature reviews, I realized the importance of literature review. Literature reviews required us to read the reports of others who have tackled the same or similar issue. This allowed us to see what those people did to complete their project, from what angle did they decide to use to approach the topic. After compiling all 5 literature reviews onto a single doc, we made some new discoveries about our topic which could be implemented when designing the refrigerator. 

         • After 4 weeks of the theory and concepts of Chemical Product Design, we finally had our very first practical on Reverse Engineering. Reverse Engineering is basically dismantling a product to find out how the product works and applying that concept to other products in the designing phase. For this practical, we were first given a working coffee maker and were tasked to make coffee using the coffee maker. The entire lab smelled of coffee and my group had a very fun time making the coffee. Unfortunately, we couldnt drink the coffee😭😭

         The second part of the practical was where the reverse engineering part came into play. We were given a duplicate of the same coffee maker but instead of making coffee, we were suppose to dismantle it to find the working principals behind the coffee maker. This was where the fun begins. We put on our safety gloves and started to unscrew the the bottom of the coffee maker. Once the bottom came off, I was quite surprised at what I saw. There were 2 tubes at the bottom of the coffee maker connected to the top of the coffee maker, where the water was being held. After further dismantling, we found out more interesting things about the coffee maker. In one of the tubes, there was a check valve installed in it. The check valve was there to prevent any backflow of water back into the resevoir, so the water could only flow down nut not up. Once we had dismantled enough, Mr Chua then explained to us the inner workings of the coffee maker. That was where I came across something new. He mentioned the use of an air-lift pump. 

         This brings me to the final part of the practical where we had a chance to see how an air lift pump operates. But before we got to do any  hands-on work, since it was our first time being exposed to an air lift pump, Mr Chua conducted a mini lecture on the  working principals of the air lift pump. He mentioned a few new terms such as : submergence length and submergence ratio. We were given a few items such as a huge beaker, a U tube, a stopwatch and a pump. We first filled the beaker up with water and then placed the U tube in the water. We then attached the U tube to a retord stand to keep it upright and then attached the pump to the U tube. We then connected the pump to the electrical supply and set the timer to 1 min. We switched on the pump and recorded the volume of water that was being pumped out in a seperate beaker. We were then told to adjust our setup to allow the pump to produce the most water. So we adjusted the length of the tube that was submerged underwater aka the submergence length. The submergence ratio was calculated by dividing the submergence length by the entire length of the U tube. As it is a proportional relationship, as the submergence ratio increases, the volumetric flowrate would also increase. Therefore, by increasing the submergence length, the  volumetric flowrate would also increase, thus allowing us to collect the most amount of water. 

In conclusion, the first practical was a very fun learning experience for me as I got exposed to many new concepts and experiences. It has also allowed me to extend my chemical engineering principals and how they affect our everyday lives. Thanks for sticking around and get ready for my new blog comign soon!!